Hiding from the fickle finger of fate

For Americans born after 1955, polio has had about as much immediate emotional impact as the Black Death, and thus it’s hard to conjure up the sense of terror that surrounded any mention of the disease barely half a century ago. In his new novel, Nemesis, Philip Roth evokes his native Newark amid a raging epidemic in 1944, focusing on one decent man’s futile struggle to understand...